Christina Bechhold – Samsung’s Global Innovation Center
Written by
Christina Bechhold
Samsung’s Global Innovation Center
Senior Associate, Strategic Investment team
Christina Bechhold is a Senior Associate with the Strategic Investment team at Samsung’s Global Innovation Center. She is also Co-Founder and Managing Director of a New York based angel group, Empire Angels, investing in tech enabled startups focusing on supporting young entrepreneurs. In addition, Christina is a regular contributor to the Wall Street Journal’s startup blog, the Accelerators, serves as a Venture for America mentor, and is a member of VFA’s Women’s Initiative Committee. Christina was previously a Vice President at Citigroup with background in capital markets, emerging markets, and structured finance. She is also Vice President of the Board of Governors of the Hotchkiss School Alumni Association. Additionally, Christina serves as Chairman of Hope on a String.
Samsung’s Global Innovation Center partners with entrepreneurs and startups in various ways. The center can incubate the new entrepreneurial ideas through their accelerator programs, invest in early stage startups, or acquire startups that are strategically significant to Samsung’s businesses. Christina focuses on early stage investments in software and service startups.
As an experienced financial professional, Christina brings her background in finance and emerging markets to her role as an angel investor at Empire Angels, where she focuses on mentoring startups, fundraising and operations. She invests in a couple of startups a year. Her past investments include MyDROBE, an interactive website for style and fashion, Human Demand, Inc., a mobile demand side platform, and Basno, a platform for digital goods.
As someone keen on supporting and assisting emerging markets, in her role serving on the board of Hope on a String, a grassroot non-profit organization that aims to foster an environment of social transformation and economic development in Haiti through participating in music, Christina has helped finance projects in various countries in Latin America, Africa, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East.
Christina will be one of the 100 seasoned entrepreneurs speaking at BDL Accelerate 2015 taking place on December 10th and 11th and Forum de Beyrouth in Lebanon.